In Empire Bank v. Dumond, No. 13-CV-0388-CVE-PJC, 2013 WL 6238605 (N.D. Okla. Dec. 3, 2013), the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma recently held that the Dodd-Frank amendment to the statute of limitation for Equal Credit Opportunity Act ("ECOA") claims does not apply retroactively. While the court held that the statute of limitation barred spousal guarantors' ECOA counterclaim, the counterclaim was allowed to proceed because it was asserted under a recoupment theory. Empire Bank obtained guaranties from various individuals, entities, and spousal ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently held that waiving any and all claims as part of loan restructuring agreements applied to a claim under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act ("ECOA"). In Ballard v. Bank of America, N.A., --- F.3d ---, 2013 WL 5814757 (4th Cir. 2013), the plaintiff filed suit alleging that the lender violated the ECOA by requiring her to guarantee loans to her husband's business. The plaintiff's husband obtained a business loan and, after defaulting on the loan, sought to restructure the debt. The lender required the plaintiff to guarantee the ...
In Schlegel v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 2013 WL 3336727, (9th Cir. July 3, 2013), the Ninth Circuit held that Wells Fargo did not qualify as a "debt collector" under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA"), even though the mortgage debt it sought to collect was in default at the time it was assigned to Wells Fargo. The facts of this case are relatively simple. After the plaintiffs' defaulted loan was assigned to Wells Fargo, the plaintiffs entered into a loan modification agreement with Wells Fargo and proceeded to make payments under the agreement. However, Wells Fargo began ...